


Salted Air, Grainy Sand

by JohannaHowl



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Day At The Beach, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Fluff, Gay Awakening, based off the british fleetway comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26293210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohannaHowl/pseuds/JohannaHowl
Summary: There's nothing like a day at the beach to clear your mind.Tekno is worried about how little Amy has mentioned Sonic lately; Amy is only worried about the weather.
Relationships: Amy Rose/Tekno the Canary
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Salted Air, Grainy Sand

“Are you sure about this, Tekno?”

Amy stared out of the passenger seat window as Tekno drove along the winding coastal road. The sky was dark and gloomy, an ominous grey-brown, the thick clouds dimming out what should’ve been beautiful afternoon sunshine. The cool breeze from earlier had become sharp and cold; it was now noticeably salt-tinted, a sure sign that the seaside was nearby.

“’Course I’m sure,” Tekno replied confidently, pulling into a run-down carpark. The car bounced over a pothole, causing something in the dashboard to rattle; Tekno gave it a pat as if to soothe it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Amy winced as the car creaked to a halt. “Looks like it’s going to rain, that’s all.”

“It’s not gonna rain, the forecast said so! Besides, it’s been ages since we’ve been out together, just us.”

Tekno flashed Amy a grin as she hopped out of the car, gravel crunching underfoot. She was right – between hanging out with the whole group, helping out Sonic on his adventures, working on tech and simply doing necessary chores, it had become quite a while since they’d had any opportunity to hang out one on one.

Shrugging her concerns off, Amy followed Tekno out of the car and down the steps to the beach. She hadn’t been here before, but it was reminiscent of every other British beach; gritty and wet, covered in stones and sharp shards of shell. Rock pools were collected in little clusters, crabs and tiny, almost translucent fish filling them up. The sand was coarse and dense, crunching under their sneakers as they walked. Amy shivered as a brisk wind hit her.

Tekno stopped suddenly, turning around on her heel, still grinning. “Right,” she declared, her hands firmly on her hips, “start looking for smooth, flat rocks!”

“Like this?” Amy picked up a thin, circular, purple rock. It was especially cold to the touch, the sand from it sticking to her fingers. “Why?”

“Exactly like that! I’m gonna teach you to skim ‘em. You go right, I’ll go left, let’s regroup in ten minutes and see what we’ve got!”

* * *

Amy wandered back towards Tekno, hands full of smooth, flat stones. They all looked similar; some were jagged, some were soft edged, some felt light and fragile, some were pleasantly heavy. She counted them in her hands once more, listening to the quiet jostling as she walked along.

“How’d you do?” Tekno called, her own hands full.

“I got eight!”

“Ten here,” she chirped. “That gives us nine each! Not bad!”

The canary walked over near the waves, dumping her stones in a pile. Amy followed suit.

“What will we be doing with all these, Tekno? What’s skimming?” she wondered out loud, glancing up at her.

Tekno didn’t respond immediately, instead picking up a stone from the pile. “Skimming is _this,_ ” she trilled, pulling back her arm and throwing it at the sea. It bounced three or four times before disappearing under the waves with a _plop_ , drawing an impressed gasp from Amy.

“Ooh! Let me try!” Amy raised her arm above her head, then chucked a stone with all her might. It sailed over the sea and crashed into it with an almighty splash, scaring the living daylights out of a nearby seagull. Tekno immediately burst into laughter, bending over with her hands on her knees, body shaking; Amy lightly slapped her on the shoulder, pouting in embarrassment. “Hey, come on, I tried!”

Tekno wiped a tear from her eye, straightening up again. “You’re being way too forceful! You can’t just lob it,” she spoke through suppressed laughter, “you have to, I don’t know, frisbee it. Here, I’ll show you.”

She walked around the hedgehog, pressing another stone into her hand. She took her arm, positioning it so it was bent behind her, as if ready to throw a frisbee some distance; she placed her other hand on Amy’s waist, repositioning her stance. Amy felt something strange pull in her chest when the canary’s fingers brushed against her hips, but shrugged it off as the cold getting to her.

“So, I just… Throw it forward?” She asked uncertainly, glancing to Tekno for affirmation. Her hand hadn’t moved from her waist. On Tekno’s nod she threw the stone forwards; it arced less this time, whizzing out straight at the sea instead. It bounced twice before disappearing under the waves.

“I did it! Tekno, did you see that?” she enthused, brimming with pride, bouncing on the tips of her toes.

“I did!” she replied, equally as excited, clapping quickly. “Now you’ve just gotta train it, get good at it! You’ve got the basics, get going!”

“I bet I can beat you! What did you do earlier, four?”

“First to do five wins?”

“You’re on!”

They spent a while mostly in silence, each focused on skimming their own rocks and counting the bounces. The crashing of the waves and squawking of the seagulls filled the beach, echoing ever so slightly against the concrete walls of the carpark and sandy dunes. It was becoming darker, greyer over a matter of minutes, but each girl was so fixed on their competition that neither had noticed.

“Well, that’s me out,” Tekno finally sighed, crossing her arms in disappointment. “I can only get it to four. How many have you got left?”

“Two,” Amy replied, her pile now diminished. She picked one up and squeezed it in her hand, as if willing it to go further. However, Tekno’s voice had caused her focus to shift. She looked up at the canary, as if studying her. “I know you didn’t bring me out here just to throw rocks at the sea. What’s up?”

She blinked in surprise, then slumped a little. “You got me,” she shrugged, “I was trying to give you a distraction.”

“A distraction?” Amy’s eyebrow raised in confusion, her arm dropping to her side. “From what?”

“You haven’t been talking about Sonic much lately. I figured maybe something bad had happened, y’know?” Tekno looked out to sea again, crossing her arms across her body. The breeze caught her hair, blowing it out of her face. “Has he said anything to you? Because if he’s upset you again, I’ll beat him up… Or tell him off or something. I know he can be pretty insensitive sometimes.”

Tekno’s words caused something strange to stir in her chest. Amy rubbed her thumb over the stone, considering her response carefully.

“I guess… I grew out of obsessing over him.”

“You what? Amy Rose, not obsessed with Sonic? Should I check if pigs have started flying?” Tekno teased, earning herself another playful slap on the shoulder.

“Oh, come on! I was never that bad!” Amy chose to ignore Tekno’s raised eyebrow, rolling her eyes instead. “No, I just… I mean, he’s very handsome! And loyal, and helpful, and he’s great fun to be around… I won’t deny that I loved him, I still do as a friend, but I think I liked the idea of Sonic dating me more than I actually wanted to date Sonic. God, does that make any sense?”

“Not really,” Tekno grinned, shrugging again, “but I kind of see where you’re coming from. Puppy love, right?”

“Right. Besides, there’s other people I want to spend time with now. I’m over following him around all the time!”

Tekno looked back at Amy. The two of them locked eyes; the wind caught the bottom of Tekno’s long skirt, causing it to flutter and dance about, and pressed Amy’s t-shirt to her body, a cold draught catching down it and around her neck. They stared as if frozen in the moment, watching each other. A strange, but not unpleasant, tension hung in the air. The wind died, and the moment ended with it, each becoming separately aware of the weirdness that was now present between them.

They faced away from each other in a flash, turning on their heels. Amy coughed awkwardly, and Tekno scratched her own neck, both trying to pretend nothing had happened. Truthfully, moments like this had happened many times before - the time Tekno had to borrow Amy’s spare nightgown while crashing at Amy’s apartment, and when she’d narrowly pulled Amy by the waist out of danger during a fight with Robotnik, and that time they’d been trying to ice-skate and fallen on top of each other in a tangle of limbs, to name just a few – but neither had wanted to think about what it might mean. It was a daunting, looming topic, like seeing the shadow of a whale underneath your fishing boat. It was easier to ignore it, push it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist.

“Should we get some more stones?” Tekno mused, looking around at the rocks behind them.

A loud rumble sounded in the distance. Amy watched the sky cautiously, now aware of how ominous the clouds looked.

“I think we should—” she started, only to be cut off by a sudden opening of the heavens. Rain poured down on them like they’d stepped into a shower, soaking the beach in an instant. _“—RUN!”_

They broke out into a sprint towards the carpark, Amy desperately trying to cover her hair with her arms, Tekno fumbling for her car keys in her pockets, panicked. Amy practically tore the door off the car the moment it was unlocked, throwing herself into the passenger seat, and Tekno tumbled in seconds later, causing the suspension to creak and groan. She cursed as she wound the window up as fast as she could; Amy couldn’t resist giggling quietly, then breaking into laughter, amused by the ridiculousness of the situation. Tekno soon joined her, slumping back into the seat and shaking with laughter, the two of them roaring together over the mess they were in.

“Look at this, I’m soaked! I told you it’d rain!” Amy exclaimed, trying to fight down her laughs so she could speak, trembling slightly from both the effort and the cold. Her mascara had begun to run down her face. She wiped it on her arm, leaving a terrible black streak, causing the two to burst into giggles once more.

Tekno briefly contemplated squeezing her thick wool jumper out, prodding at the sodden fabric, before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. She pulled it over her head and threw it into the footwell in the back, where it landed with an unceremonious _splat._ Judging the appropriateness of the situation, Amy peeled her own t-shirt off, throwing it in the pile too. It would’ve been embarrassing with anyone else, but she knew Tekno had no ulterior motives; the two had gotten changed together or swapped clothes more times than she could count, and not once did her gaze linger where it wasn’t supposed to.

Tekno glanced at her, tutting quietly. “Get those off too,” she sighed sympathetically, gesturing at Amy’s jeans, “you’ll freeze to death… And soak my car. I just had it cleaned!”

“I’ll freeze to death without them too!”

“I’ve got a blanket in the back you can have, we can grab more clothes at mine. C’mon, you’ll get ill.”

Amy complied, shimmying them off with some difficulty. Tekno was knelt in her seat, bent over into the back of her car, rummaging around the bags and piles of equipment for the blanket. Her skirt clung to her legs, now thick and heavy with water.

The hedgehog frowned. “Aren’t you going to get cold in that too? It’s your blanket, y’know. You can have it.”

Her suggestion was met with a shake of the head. “Nope,” she chirruped, “I’ll get done if the police see me driving about in a blanket. Besides, cotton dries quickly. Here!”

Before she could protest, Tekno draped the blanket around her shoulders. It was a soft, dark fleece, check patterned. It felt warm against her body, but Amy was more focused on another feeling; Tekno’s fingers brushed against her bare shoulders as she wrapped it around her, pulling it tight around her body. She stole a glance down Tekno, her petite frame and bony hips, and when she looked back up their faces were much closer than anticipated…

Amy’s heart began to thump in her chest. Something clicked in her mind.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled, grinning at Tekno, “I’m an idiot.”

She cocked her head, confused. “What? Don’t tell me you left something on the beach…”

“No, not that! I know why I don’t want to date Sonic—”

She cut herself off, the excitement having caught up to her.

She kissed Tekno.

Amy leaned in quickly, as if afraid of missing her chance, and without thinking about what she was doing pressed her lips to Tekno’s beak. It was short and sweet; she pulled back quickly, the realization of what she’d done already sinking in, but before she could say anything Tekno was cradling her chin and pulling her in again. They crushed together this time, and it felt right; all those touches, glances, brief heart flutters and bumps of hands, all those butterflies in her stomach over the last few months made sense.

When they pulled apart they broke into laughter again, but it was different this time – breathless, giddy laughter, the strangely intoxicating sort that leaves you feeling light-headed.

“Okay, wow,” Tekno finally whispered, smiling from ear to ear, “I never thought…”

“Do you mind it?”

“Does it look like I mind?” she laughed, causing Amy to giggle quietly, still heady off the realization. “Amy, I’ve wanted to kiss you since I met you.”

They beamed at each other, and the running mascara, the wet hair, the soggy clothes (and lack of), none of it mattered.

Amy reached for Tekno’s hand, squeezing it in her own.

“Let’s go home.”


End file.
